Operation Bagration
Operation Bagration was a massive Soviet counterattack that occurred across Eastern Europe from 22 June to 19 August 1944. Multiple Soviet forces advanced on several fronts, ranging from the Baltics in the north to Romania in the south, and the main Soviet push came through Belarus and into Poland. Army Group Center was destroyed after defensive battles at Vitebsk and Minsk, and the Soviets proceeded to push into the Baltics, eastern Poland, and up to the Dniester River in Romania. Over half a million German troops were lost in the offensive, which coincidentally took place three years to the day after the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa; Bagration effectively negated the gains made in Barbarossa. The Soviets succeeded in pushing the Germans back, and the operation was a major victory for the Allied Powers against the Axis Powers. By the end of 1944, Soviet forces were advancing into Hungary and western Poland. History Background As the spring rains of 1944 fell, both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany made plans for their summer campaigns. The Stavka planed a westward drive, of which the largest element - Operation Bagration - would be launched north and south of the Pripet Marshes, with the goal of expelling the Germans from the Byelorussian SSR, trapping and destroying Army Group Center, and then advancing through central Poland, toward Warsaw and Lublin. To the south, another offensive - the Lwow-Sandomierz Offensive - was to roll through Ukrainian Galicia into southern Poland. Operation Operation Bagration envisaged a vast envelopment of Army Group Center along a 450-mile front. A northern pincer, spearheaded by the 3rd Belorussian Front and supported by the 2nd Belorussian Front, was to drive 200 miles westward to Minsk, where it was to link with the southern pincer formed by the northern wing of the 1st Belorussian Front. Carrying out this encirclement would be 1,700,000 troops, over twice the number in Army Group Center. Initially, they would have the support of 2,715 tanks and 1,355 assault guns, six times the number available to the Germans. Bagration was preceded by a closely meshed web of deception measures and, from 19 June, by concerted partisan operations against rail communications in occupied Byelorussia. By the summer of 1944, some 270,000 Soviet partisans in the region were cooperating closely with deep reconnaissance units of the Red Army and tying down up to 15% of Army Group Center's combat strength. On 22 June, a reconnaissance in force was launched by the Red Army to probe Army Group Center's defenses. In the early hours of 23 June 1944, after a crushing artillery barrage, the blow fell as the 3rd Belorussian Front burst on the 3rd Panzer Army in the area of Vitebsk. Commanded by General Georg-Hans Reinhardt, this was a panzer army in name only, consisting of nine infantry divisinos forward and two in reserve. Four of Reinhardt's divisions, comprising the LIII Armeekorps, were, on Hitler's insistence, committed to the static defense of Vitebsk. By the evening of the 23rd, Reinhardt was making demands that the commander of Army Group Center, Field Marshal Ernst Busch, allow him to evacuate Vitebsk immediately. Busch relayed this to Hitler, who eventually agreed that three divisions could fight their way out, leaving one behind to hold Vitebsk. It mattered little, since all four divisions of LIII Corps were lost, wiped from the map without a trace. Those who escaped the clutches of the Red Army fell into the hands of Soviet partisans, who had little enthusiasm for taking prisoners. As Army Group Center splintered under the ferocity of Bagration, Reinhardt lost a second corps and was now left with only two of his 11 divisions. To the south, around Bobruisk, the greater part of the German 9th Army was encircled. In the center of the German line the German 4th Army was forced to give ground to the 2nd Belorussian Front and was threatened with isolation as the Red Army drove on Minsk. On 26 June, Hitler demanded that Orsha and Mogilev, whiuch law in the path of, respectively, the 3rd and 2nd Belorussian Fronts, should be held to the last man, so condemning another two German divisions to destruction. He then tore himself away from the situation in Normandy to take personal control of plugging in the gaping holes that had been torn in Army Group Center's front. Fall of Minsk By 28 June, Red Army tanks had already crossed the Berezina River and were racing westward. Busch, completely out of his depth, was replaced by Walther Model, who immediately grasped that the Red Army's objectives lay far beyond the rear of Army Group Center. Minsk fell on 3 July, having been cut off by the 3rd and 1st Belorussian Fronts. The envelopment left large numbers of troops of the German 4th and 9th Armies trapped in a giant cauldron east of the city. Between 5 and 11 July, the Red Army and partisans began methodically to slice up these pockets while the Soviet armor continued to roll westward, reaching Vilna on 13 July and Bialystok on the 27th. The scale of the German losses in Bagration was estimated to be some 350,000 men (25 divisions). This number included 150,000 taken prisoner, of whom over half would die during transportation to the prisoner-of-war camps, or from malnutrition and disease after they reached their destinations. The few survivors would not see Germany again until the middle of the next decade. The Red Army lost some 179,000 men. Category:Battles Category:World War II